I Am Woman, Hear Me Whine By Mark Noonan

You’d think that Katie Couric would be too busy driving the CBS Evening News into the ground to have time for petty complaints, but she manages to take time to whine:

The feminist movement that began in the 1970’s helped women make tremendous strides—but there still haven’t been enough great leaps for womankind. Fifty-one percent of America is female, but women make up only about sixteen percent of Congress—which, as the Washington Monthly recently pointed out, is better than it’s ever been…but still not as good as parliaments in Rwanda (forty-nine percent women) or Sweden (forty-seven percent women). Only nine Fortune 500 companies have women as CEO’s.

That meeting was a reality check for me—and not just about Iraq. It was a reminder that all of us still have an obligation to ask: Don’t more women deserve a place at the table too?

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

I didn’t realise we were supposed to be looking towards Rwanda for inspiration these days. Anyways…

Katie, grab a clue: women, as a gender, don’t deserve anything. People who earn deserve things – and, per Shakespear, what most of us have actually earned is a whipping: and people who make millions of dollars a year and still find reason to complain should be at the top of that list. You’re not supposed to have a spot at the top reserved for you just because you’ve got the correct internal plumbing. The plain fact of the matter is that if the very best people to be our top 50 CEO’s are handicapped, transgendered women of color, then that is who should have those top 50 slots. Does the phrase “content of character” ring a bell?

There is no such thing as a women’s issue, a black issue, a gay issue – what we have are issues which humans have to deal with, as humans, and seek the most just settlement possible. We’re really not supposed to care if a person is being denied their due because they are black, or gay, or female – the only concern is that someone is being denied their due, and we have to try and ensure they get what they’ve earned. If you really want to say that women deserve something, then you’re saying that the single mother who works her butt off raising her kids and going to college to improve her life deserves no more than the single mother who is drunk by 2pm every afternoon.

What liberals like Couric really need to do, of course, is stop talking and start thinking….